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Diane goes through pretty major shifts this week, as we settle into what this season might end up being all about. While the partners decided not to offer Celeste her "new home" originally, Diane has had quite the mercenary brainwave: A double-dip recession means bankruptcy might become L/G's strongest division, so when we hear news that Celeste Serrano's Bankruptcy department is joining Litigation and Acquisitions as part of the deal, Will is dispatched into the hairy world of Celeste's total crazy. There are all-night poker games, there is a excruciatingly awkward three-way conversation with Peter Florrick, there is recrimination and creepiness of sundry stripe...
And then it turns out the whole thing is a big lie, and Celeste isn't actually looking to join L/G at all: Those departments are forming their own firm, and want Will to come along. She also wants him to "feed" the eponymous "rat," which in this context means "be gross like how you actually are and stop trying to impress Alicia, and/or Jesus, by pretending you're normal." (One thinks, again, of that chunky stew of the depressed rats biting and fucking each other to death. One thinks of them, to be honest, pretty much all the time. One is haunted by the biting, fucking rat stew.) To sweeten the pot, Celeste offers Will a pretty solid line on one day becoming baseball commissioner, so of course he spends the last couple acts brooding and eventually tells her, once again, to fuck off.
Off, methinks, she will not be fucking.
Meanwhile, Diane decides to put a halt to all pro bono cases as part of her sudden fiscal spring-cleaning, which lasts about five seconds until she visits Legal Aid to break up with them in person. After an electrically charged meeting with the head of that motley group (played by fantastic old Romany "Conrad" Malco), she ends up deciding to pull them in-house and stick 'em to Eli, in one of the most heartwarmingly West Wing True Believer moments of the whole series. Diane's been so background this season that I forgot how powerful it is when she gets that look in her eyes, like she believes in America and a fair shake. That ERA face she gets.
Eli, he's still doing the Cheese Thing and his Usual Thing; his new demand is to have Alicia and Kalinda assigned to him full-time, an obvious disaster that nobody can even tell him about, of course. Plus, it would be giving him their two best dudes, which he's already working on anyway: By the end he's offering Kalinda the world if she'll join him when he leaves L/G. That part seemed a little early and unearned, but Kal-El are still crackling good together: Eli comes to Kalinda for information about the firm's power structure, which -- while not exactly revelatory -- is fun to hear discussed: If you want to convince Diane go through David Lee, if you want Will's ear go through Alicia, that kind of thing. Fun. Fun to see those two weirdos do their weirdness on each other.
There is no David Lee and we see no Finn, which means we'll have to save until week my fantasies where they fight over Owen in a gladiatorial battle.
Over at the SA's office, Peter has brought in an AUSA, Amani, to give oversight on the plea bargains and other measures of the office that may come off looking racist or biased. Of course Cary finds this hilarious, and as usual he's never quite so sexy as when he's overlooking his own white privilege, but they work well together, and it's a pretty interesting take on the prosecutorial side which I hope stays important.
As for the case, it's pretty decent. There's a young father who gets caught in a convenience store robbery, but then Cary is really mean to him and decides to prosecute, and the whole case is based on this eye witness that is not what he seems, and cross-racial identification some more, and Harvey Fierstein is somehow still alive and performing on television, and Kalinda does some magical unicorn brain spell and figures it all out right before they put him in front of a firing squad or whatever. Standard stuff, told straight.
But because so much of the episode was about these major shifts in the greater ecosystems -- Eli Gold, Legal Aid, baseball commissioner, Peter Florrick's many white burdens -- it was actually a relief not to have to remember a bunch of characters or specialized jargon or whatever. Also, to concentrate on the romance of it, which was pretty crazy: Will ends a phone call with Alicia with an automatic "love you" that makes both of them act like they have witnessed a grisly child murder, and then later Alicia freezes him out pretty hard about it, because he wants to talk about how maybe he really is or something, and she's like, "No thank you, go hang out with Diane please," and then she just stares into space and thinks about how for a person with no feelings, Will is really kind of a hassle sometimes.
week, more rats: Murderous manga-perv Colin Sweeney returns, for an adventure of Clarice Starling proportion, in Apeneck III: The Apening.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!For tonight's performance, the Front of Chris Noth's Head will be played by: Chris Noth.
INCONVENIENCE
ATM From the '80s: "Sorry, you have no '80s money!"
Cute Young Dad: "And here it is my young son's birthday. Maybe they have some fun, conveniently inexpensive toys or playthings in this strip mall. Oh, look! You can get your checks cashed. I just wish I had some checks."
Convenience Store From The '70s: "Lowest Prices In Town!"
Cute Young Dad: "That's the ticket, by gum."
Register Fellow: "Don't rob me!"
Cute Young Dad: "That's an odd thing to say. Here's another! Do you have any toys that a young boy would like? Let's see. Do children enjoy... Chewing tobacco? Or a hotdog that has been rolling and rolling, over and over, forever?"
Convenience Store From The '70s: "Perhaps a greeting card would best express your sentiments of emotion."
Cute Young Dad: "Do you have any card that says, like, Sorry I am a poor provider, but I'm new to things such as money and what convenience stores sell, or maybe I hope you enjoy this chewing tobacco and a condom for your birthday?"
Register Fellow: "Maybe there are toys in the back. I don't know what's back there."
Moments later, while CYD is back there looking at gardening clippers and garroting wire and thinking maybe this, maybe that, a man robs the register guy, who was psychic all along. He says things like, "Don't you fool with me!" and "I'll blast your ass!" But then he does fool with the robber, and the robber does blast his ass.
Things become very suspenseful, because CYD hits the bricks the second they raise their voices, and he's all alone in there, like an Amish boy in a public bathroom, with a killer. And then his cell phone goes off! It is ringing, ringing, ringing. And that's heartpounding, the hearts are pounding, and some feet are footpounding, getting closer to him and to his ultimate demise, but then no. It is just a hot cop. His feet sounded scary, but they were actually protective, and strong, and ready to work the beat.
He shushes CYD, and continues on into the even bowelier bowels of the convenience store. And the last thing CYD hears, before losing both continence and consciousness, is the hot cop going, "For Chrissake it's like a damn toy store back here."
STATION
Cute Yong Mom: "Holy shit! You were in a robbery of a convenience store? How scary!"
Cute Young Dad: "I am fairly shaken. Hey, a smarmy blonde dude is approaching me in the middle of this police station as though we have much to discuss, can I call you back?"
Cary: "Bitches be talking, right? I have a wife just like you, and man, she won't get off the fucking phone for anything."
Cute Young Dad, Mr. Dolan: "Who is it, that you are?"
Cary: "I am tricking you is what I am."
Cary: "You know how we're best friends, from a second ago?"
Dolan: "Yeah, I remember. Bitches."
Cary: "That was a sneaky trick. Now I am arresting you for the murder of the register guy."
Dolan: "Wait, what?"
Cary: "Hang on, because I am about to get very mean. As weird as it was when I was super nice, it's even weirder how mean I am about to be to you."
Dolan: "I am honestly very confused."
Cary: "Not to mention a murderer, you piece of filth."
Alicia: "Mr. Dolan, I'm Alicia Florrick. You can trust me because I'm relatable."
Dolan: "Are you the public defender? Because you're dressed like you're going to the opera."
Alicia: "No, this is pro bono. Because you're so super poor."
Dolan: "That's actually why we're here. See, I couldn't get any '80s money so then I looked at greeting cards and I was going to get a squirt gun for my kid, and then that was the last time my life made any sense."
Alicia: "For me, it was right before my husband had sex with a prostitute on camera."
Cary: Hisses! Spits!
Alicia: "Nice to see you too, Cary."
Witness: "White people all look the same to me, but sure, I can do a lineup."
Cary: "Also, why is there a mysterious lady in here with us at this lineup?"
Mysterious Lady: "That is one of the most mysterious things about me."
Alicia: Notices he's wearing glasses; Cary notices her noticing.
Cary: "Witness Guy, were you wearing glasses when you witnessed the crime?"
Witness: "Yes. Also, that is the man that did the crime. I spot him."
Police: "That Cute Young Dad there?"
Witness: "Yes, he went psycho!"
Police: "That's sad to hear. It's this economy."
Travis Dolan used to work for Parks. I don't know if that's a hedge fund or like Leslie Knope or what, but either way he's adorable and we know he didn't do it. But now Cary Agos is saying that Dolan saw the cops coming and ditched his own gun and ran toward the back of the store -- which is going to end up being kind of true, but not about Dolan -- and Cary and Alicia agree to offer him second degree. Which is two degrees more than he should be going to jail for, because we know him and we know he didn't do it. But everybody else on this show doesn't know him as well as we do. Not quite yet.
L/G
Eli: "Alicia! You should be at my beck and call!"
Alicia: "I like dicking around with you."
Eli: "Please come to this meeting with Will and Diane. You know how scary they are."
Alicia: "Just act like a frigging human being, for like one second."
Eli: "That is a novel concept. Thanks."
Eli: "Kalinda! You should be at my beck and call!"
Kalinda: "I am capable of like infinite work, it doesn't matter to me. Full-time, part-time, I am going to find the clue immediately before the third commercial break regardless of how you're paying me."
Eli: "I have three political crises and the cheese lobby and I feel spiritual about you and our connection. Also, I don't like sharing. Also, I want to poach you when I leave Lockhart, Gardner."
Kalinda: "Oh, see, you should have just said that. I'm not leaving L/G. Not happening. Last time I flirted with that idea I almost ended up at the SA's office. Never again."
Eli, verbatim: "It is going to happen, because I'm going to make it worth your while. More money, more power, more self-reliance..."
Table it, for now.
Will: "Eli, I don't trust you and I think you're sleazy. Which is one bad thing and one good thing, because I totally love sleazy stuff. Why are we in this meeting?"
Julius: "I'm Julius. I'm not on this show very much."
Eli: "I need Alicia and Kalinda at my beck and call!"
Will: "No."
Eli: "I will make some vague threats, okay?"
Will: "Seriously, no. For eleven thousand different reasons, no. Starting with A is for Alicia will kill Kalinda, and Z is for They are our best dudes. No."
Diane: "Will, I hate it when you say the truth. Let's talk in private. Eli, your concerns and your money are very important to us."
Diane: "Will, please don't piss him off. He hops back and forth on those tiny doll legs and flails his arms around like the Lonely Goatherd and I just lose it. Just completely lose my shit."
Will: "But he's just being bossy and annoying and if you give him an inch he'll take a mile. A wee little mile."
Diane: "The Dairy Guild is bringing in as much money right now as we lost last year. Eli is good for us."
Will: "So good that we give him Alicia? I don't know if you've ever seen this show, but she's the one that wins all the cases. Every case, she wins it. Without her we're basically just a warehouse for vipers. And don't get me started on Kalinda."
Diane, servin' up some real talk: "We are heading into a double-dip recession without a bankruptcy department, without tax lawyers, and our lawyers -- some of our best lawyers, really our only lawyer to be totally honest -- are busy doing pro bono? Balls to that. Balls to poor people, and balls to their legal issues. That is what PDs are for. You call the pro bono people and tell them to suck it. I'm cancelling my scheduled contributions to Planned Parenthood and 826 Valencia. I am serious this time, Will! As God is my witness, we will not watch money flood out the door anymore. Charity was the Old Diane. New Diane says Fuck it."
MEANWHILE
Eli: "Kalinda, break it down for me. Who's the boss in there?"
Kalinda: "You're the freak genius, you figure it out. If you can't even get to the bottom of a power structure that involves the two named partners, I don't know what to do with you."
Eli: "I feel like there's more than I'm getting and I'm not sure what it is."
Kalinda: "Maybe it's because David Lee is almost never here, and most of the older partners died in a sudden Inuit culling, and Bond is gone, but it really is exactly as simple as it appears. That's one of the great things about being in a law firm run by awesome, smart, good people."
OR ARE THEY/IS IT?
Diane: "We've expanded, Will, beyond our means. Yes, we're one of the few all-service firms left standing, but we did it at a cost, and we can't continue this way. We need bankruptcy. If there's one department that'll survive a double-dip recession, it's bankruptcy. To build one from the ground up would take time, but luckily enough, we can acquire one off the shelf. There's a firm breaking up: malpractice is going one way, acquisition another, bankruptcy, I just found out, is going with litigation."
Celeste. She's talking about Celeste Serrano! Oh no!
Will: "Oh, hell no. You said no, I said no. We agreed no. No to that hellcat, that banshee. She is a lunatic. You know she has this retinue of transvestites that she takes places, right? She has a white puma, some kind of great cat, that lives at her house. She once got thrown in jail for stalking ZZ Top. That lady is insane, no. No to that."
Diane: "I think probably we say yes to that, though. Because if it's bankruptcy and litigation, then we will say yes."
Will: "Um, okay. But you should talk to her. If I go talk to her I'll probably end up burying another hooker outside of Chicago in the dead of night."
Diane: "I think you're going to, though. You go find her at the Midwest Bar Association, where she is giving a seminar on dispute resolution."
Will: "Or, as she used to call it, Handjobs Or Homicide, They Both Take The Same Amount Of Time."
Diane: "It's either you deal with her, or we get accustomed to Rumpelstiltskin over there jerkin' our chain whenever he feels like it."
Will: "So my choices are we sell ourselves to Eli right now, or I gamble my soul with Celeste Serrano, the Tammies to my Ron Swanson?"
Diane: "Who doesn't enjoy CLE?"
A: Everybody.
STATE'S ATTY
Peter: "Everybody, go to the Midwest Bar Association for some CLE."
Everybody: "NOOO!"
Peter: "Also, the DOJ thinks that Glenn Childs was a racist and there are biases in the way we plea bargain. They've requested to detail an AUSA to this office, but don't think of her as a watchdog. Think of her as a mean lady who thinks you're a racist."
Imani: "I totally do. He's not lying."
Peter: "Imani, I'd like you to meet Cary Agos. He is by the far the most irritatingly white person you've ever seen. He's like an Abercrombie & Fitch ad, but one that somehow makes you feel even gayer when you look at him. And good Lord he has a low opinion of most women."
Cary: "All true. Other than that, I am a pretty nice guy though."
Imani: "I have memorized your record, and you do show a marked bias in your pleas. I'm glad you're saddled with me."
Cary: "I guess we're going to be having sex eventually."
Also, though, the drug laws in this country are institutionalized racism, gerrymandered around class lines and enforced haphazardly, for the purpose of putting black people in jail. So there's only so much of this conversation that you can actually have, on this show, before you come up against that. They can throw around code words and coded comparisons, like "crack" vs. "cocaine," but that's really what we're talking about.
CLE
Lawyers: Shaking hands, smarming it up, Luntz from 30 Rock is there and gross as always, everybody's having a great old boring time.
Will finds Celeste at some doddering old dude's seminar, and we learn that Will and Celeste used to work for the old man, and also she fucked the old man on 9/11. Also, she is just dicking with him because she knows that he knows bankruptcy is on the table.
Celeste: "So you're here to charm me?"
Will: "To offer you a home."
Celeste: "And what about your lawyer friend?"
I love how she always calls her "that lawyer" as if they're not all lawyers and she's like, "Not that cobbler you dated briefly, or the trapeze artist, but that attorney. Felicia something." Anyway, they do some negotiating about the idea of Celeste bringing her litigators and bankruptcy guys to L/G, and it goes back and forth, and they mention again that jetliner class-action that Celeste and Diane both want, and eventually Celeste gets called away.
Or does she? Everything is smoke and mirrors with her. Smoke, mirrors, and crazy. Does the old doddering man even remember fucking her on 9/11? I honestly can't tell. He would give her that alarmed side-eye either way, because her ass is alarming.
L/G
Diane: "It's a chocolate and peanut butter situation here, because while Peter has told the SAs not to plea bargain anything anymore, I am telling you guys to plead all your pro bonos. Just cut and run and leave those poor motherfuckers choking on their own blood."
Alicia: "No, the show forgot about that. This week it's that they can't plea bargain in a racist way. Also, Cary won't work with me on this one guy."
Diane: "Um, twenty years for second degree murder, when they have a witness to the murder being committed, does not sound like Cary being a dick."
Julius: "I'll talk to him or something. Hey, who's going to break up with Legal Aid?"
Diane: "I'll do it. I am an uncaring monster, a frigid harpy. I will go down there in person and just punch Conrad from Weeds right in his stupid beautiful face. I'll be like, 'Legal Aid? Looks like you need First Aid!' And then I'll rack him and take his wallet. Put it in petty cash."
Ring ring!
Will: "Hey Diane, I talked to Crazypants and she said she wants half of the jetliner class action."
Diane: "She has the crew's families, we have the passenger families. That's 35%."
Will: "You know how she got the name Crazypants, right? It wasn't because of her pants."
Diane: "Just charm her! You know how you are, all the time? Be like that."
Alicia: "Are you guys talking about Celeste!? I mean, whatever. I mean I don't care. Who is that, even? Celeste, is that even, like, a person place or thing? Who are you guys? Where are we right now? What is this, a law office or something? I have to go. Bye now."
TRIAL
Their Kid: "Daddy, congratulations on making this the best birthday ever. I got to go through a metal detector!"
Cute Young Mom: "Travis, you sure do get into some scrapes."
Julius: "The guy's never even had a parking ticket."
Cary: "I know, that's why I offered second degree. Hey, have you met Imani? She's like my Jiminy Cricket, but of racial tension."
Julius: "Is that why you are trying to destroy a Cute Young Family? To impress her?"
Imani: "Um, actually, he's being totally fair based on the evidence."
Julius: "Okay, but what you don't know is that Peter Florrick has policy ADD. Last week it was all No plea bargains! and this week he's like No racism! and week it'll be Use your ecomagination! You're just a fad. Later."
Julius: "So Alicia, how are you going to win this case later in the episode?"
Alicia: "No idea. Probably Kalinda will turn up some bizarre clue and I'll get all intuitive on it. But in the meantime, let's turn this preliminary hearing into a poor man's deposition and see what the prosecution has to show us."
Julius: "That's going to piss off the judge."
Alicia: "Yeah, except the judge is the Honorable Francis Flamm, aka 'Judge Tie-Dye' and played by Harvey Fierstein, who is still kicking around."
Julius: "God, remember Brian Kerwin in that movie?"
Alicia: "Remember him in Murphy's Romance? Criminy."
LEGAL AID
Diane: "Offer her flex time! The option to telecommute. Tell her we'll find her a corner office."
Will: "We're out of corners. Where are you, a football game?"
Diane: "Yes, my midday treat to myself. No. Legal Aid."
Will: "Come on, Diane, you don't have to break up in person. Just make a call."
Diane: "Yeah well, that was the plan, but my guilt was getting to me."
Will: "Guilt is for the weak!"
Diane: "Also, you should get a gander at the Legal Aid guy before you ask any more stupid questions. He is totally Conrad from Weeds."
Will: "'Nuff said."
TRIAL
Not only is Alicia confident about this "poor man's deposition" idea, she's so much so that she would also like to get about six other plates spinning at the same time, and Cary over there just bitching himself pink the entire time: Kalinda is at the crime scene, asking Julius questions on the phone, and then he runs those questions to Alicia, and she asks them on record at the hearing, and then Julius relays them back to Kalinda, and the whole time Fierstein's like, "Yeah, I know what she's doing, but I am a hippie and I believe in justice and zucchini bread and gay cinema and I need you to chill."
As far as the facts, I mean, who cares. The shooter was inside the store, about ten feet back, and the witness was twenty feet away, on the sidewalk opposite, and then he saw the robber going into the back of the store, where the toys are, and the main thing of this part is that there's a coded lock on the back door, so the real robber couldn't have gotten out that way. Which we already knew, because we were in the back of the store, but it doesn't really matter anyway, because it's about establishing doubt.
The witness is a detective who, yes, has heard of our old friend cross-racial identification, but doesn't give it a hell of a lot of credence, because it's hard to believe that black people would have as much trouble telling white people apart as vice versa, due to black people generally looking more alike than white people do, from where he's sitting. He doesn't actually say that, but in an episode entirely about white privilege it's certainly the funniest example.
Our witness gave a general description of the suspect at first, but then talked to the sketch artist... But only after he had seen Travis Dolan, who was just hanging out in the police station minding his own. Which normally couldn't happen because he would be in custody, but did this time because he wasn't a suspect -- just a witness that didn't see anything. Anyway, the detective hates Alicia some more, and Cary is bored by everything.
Meanwhile, a sullen slacker dude is half-interested in telling Kalinda what he saw from the fish shop across the way, but also half-interested in being really unhelpful. He looks a bit like the sketch, to be honest, and in any case he doesn't recognize it. Also, he smells like fish, and fish plus resentment is a terrible thing to be around, so Kalinda should get a move on and not worry about this kid anymore.
Fun Fact: Fish Plus Resentment is also the official fragrance of Brighton, UK.
Alicia tattles on Cary that the cops aren't giving Kalinda the crime scene photos fast enough, and Judge Hippie is like, "We must proceed in a speedy way of justice!"
Meanwhile, Kalinda discovers that the register guy was performing some kind of transaction with a lotto ticket when he was shot one million times, so she pulls out her magic space telephone to snap, flip, enhance and make into a three-dimensional hologram the image of the ticket, and then sends the bar code to her friend Tim -- Tim the Lottery Ticket Barcode Decoder, he's a dolphin with an attitude that speaks in clicks and beeps but always gets his man, or his lotto ticket -- to find out where the person lives that bought or redeemed that lotto ticket, so that she can go ask if she can "use their bathroom."
Nobody ever figures out that "use your bathroom" is code for "run rampant through all of your private shit, flinging things over my shoulder and making all your paperwork go see-sawing down through the air and eventually going through your undies and finding your secret underwear money." So she's going to keep doing it.
CLE
Will: "Celeste, you're a litigator. Why are you at the Criminal Law mixer?"
Celeste: "I like criminal. The men are so... straight."
The fact that she believes this is either further proof that she's crazy, or she's talking strictly about prosecution, but either way I'm so sure. Anyway, they talk about work for like one second, and then she does her usual thing of suddenly turning it up to eleven out of nowhere, t-boning the conversation where it stands and giving him the full Serrano. Which never comes with a warning.
Celeste: "Do you know what it means to feed the rat, Will? You can live your sweet little domesticated life. You can date your cute little apple-cheeked lawyer..."
Will: "-- 'Apple-cheeked'?"
Celeste: "But eventually, you have to feed the rat. Return to the wild."
Will: "Rrrright, because you're fucking crazy. I don't know how I manage to forget that three times in every conversation, but you sure are quick to remind me."
Celeste: "You need to feed the rat, Will. You are killing yourself trying to be normal."
Will: "I am normal."
Interesting, no? I think there is a rat and I think it's large, but I also think that people do change. Never as much as they say they do, because life in part is a story that we're telling everybody else, but still. So the question is always, "Are you just being really enthusiastic, or was this a legitimate epiphany? Will you still be 'normal' tomorrow? Does this stick this time?"
And that's a compelling thing to wonder, because you have to love them either way, but sometimes seeing somebody fool himself or herself makes you feel the grossest of all, like you're seeing something you shouldn't be seeing. Some embarrassing thing they didn't even know you caught a glimpse of, because they're still believing whatever story they're trying to tell. I hate that so, so much.
THINGS GET WORSE
Celeste: "Oh, Mr. Florrick! Hi! Big fan! I came here especially hoping to bump into you!"
Peter: "Well, that's a horrible thing to say to a person."
Celeste: "I think you know Will Gardner?"
Peter & Will: Friendly noises. Man noises. Throat-clearing, Batman-growling noises.
Celeste: "You two have so much in common, don't you?"
Peter & Will: Suspicious and queasy.
Celeste: "Will and I worked at the same firm, and dated. My first threesome was with Will!"
Peter & Will: "Yes, that's the most appalling thing you could've said."
Peter can't tell if she's trying to fuck with Will, or flirt with him, or flirt with them both, or what her game is. What, logically, she is trying to do. But how on earth can you explain Celeste Serrano to somebody like Peter Florrick? Some motherfuckers just want to see the world burn. There is more crazy in Celeste Serrano than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Brother Isaiah.
Celeste: "So, Alicia Florrick, huh? Well, she works with Will, she's married to you. Must be quite an arrangement. Discuss."
Peter & Will: Want to kill her. Want to kill each other. Want to die. Just fall down dead and die, so they don't have to be in this location at this time.
Celeste: "...ANY AWKWARD MOMENTS?"
Peter, verbatim: "You mean besides this one?"
Oh, it gets worse.
Celeste: " How many kids do you have, Peter?"
Peter: "Two. Boy and a girl."
Celeste: "I love boys and girls."
...Gross. Everything she says now feels like this creepy double entendre that you don't understand right now but in a couple of hours it'll click and you'll just be like, "Oh, yuck."
Celeste: "Very domestic. What ages?"
Peter: "16 and 14. The sixteen-year-old is okay, but God the younger one's a hassle."
Celeste: "Kids, Will. Peter here has kids. With his wife. His wife Alicia. Will, kids."
Celeste: "I don't like 'em, really. I don't get it."
Peter: "You get them if you've got them."
Celeste: "I don't know about that. I'm too selfish."
Will: "And fucking nuts. You're too nuts."
Celeste: "Hey Will, have you ever met his kids? Alicia never brought them to work, or...?"
Peter and Will both get physically ill that she's doing this, at this point. The plausible deniability -- for her, not for Will of course -- just evaporates, and it is sickening and sad. Will finally just gets this depressed, disgusted look on his face about her behavior and takes off
Even Peter Is Like: "Man, that poor guy. You really crapped on his day just now, hinting around that he's fucking my wife and all that. You are really a goddamn piece of work."
KALINDA
Old Woman: "The Lottery Control Board? Why, did we win the lottery?"
Kalinda: "Yes, you did. For five hundred imaginary dollars! Can I 'use your bathroom'?"
Old Woman: "I'll just be out here in the parlor, planning on how best to spend that money. I'm thinking health care supplies for my diabetes. Maybe a bird so that I don't die of loneliness. I wonder how much a bird costs, in imaginary dollars."
Kalinda rips the shit out of the lotto person's bedroom -- he's a young feller that just moved back in with his mom, it's this economy -- and what do you know, it's the surly Gen X fishmonger that thinks we owe him the world. And guess what is in his underwear drawer? That's right. Secret underwear money.
Round about this time, that Old Lady starts yelling her ass off, all, "OH HI DEAR DID YOU HAVE A NICE DAY" and all of this mess, as if to specifically warn Kalinda about how the dangerous fishmonger is inside the house, and just as the old woman is explaining about the lottery winnings and how they will never go hungry again and finally things are looking up, you see Kalinda running to her car, having exited the house in some nonstandard fashion. So I guess in the end that old lady will just die alone and poor, which is what she was before Kalinda showed up. But at least she got to meet Kalinda.
Eli: "I feel like you're cheating on me."
Kalinda: "Only for money."
Eli: "We are so sassy. Hey, by the way, who has the power in this law firm?"
Kalinda: "Diane in criminal, Will in civil."
Eli: "How about the money?"
Kalinda: "Diane, but only by default, because Will hates dealing with it. Once bitten twice shy, I guess, when it comes to embezzlement."
Eli: "Does he mean it when he says no?"
Kalinda: "Often."
Eli: "Even to me?"
Kalinda: "Probably."
Eli: "Aw, nuts."
Eli: "Okay, what about Julius?"
Kalinda: "He's not on this show much, so I don't know that he matters."
Eli: "Shouldn't the head of litigation not hate me? Why does he hate me?"
Kalinda, verbatim: "You're the new and shiny thing."
Eli: "Okay, but does it matter that he doesn't like me?"
Kalinda, hilariously: "...No."
Eli: "Anybody else with power?"
Kalinda: "David Lee, Family Law. Bitchy as hell. Pretty great, most of the time."
Eli: "And Alicia, where does she stand in all of this?"
Kalinda-Bot: Powering down.
Eli: "Alicia Florrick. Her place in this structure."
Kalinda: "She's a third-year associate. But yeah, she matters."
Eli: "Because of her husband?"
Kalinda: "Among, like, thousands of reasons. She can persuade people."
Eli: "You mean like Will?"
Kalinda: "See, you don't actually need me for this. What are you even doing."
Eli: "The hierarchy. Usually I can figure it out, but this place is like a mom-and-pop store."
Kalinda: "No, it's actually that simple because they keep pulling coups on everybody all the time, or the people have Alzheimer's, or they drop dead, or David Lee is mean to them. It's all about Will and Diane. Lockhart and Gardner. The end."
Eli: "The end?"
Kalinda: "Okay, I guess we're friends suddenly, so here's the real real shit. If you want to persuade Diane, you persuade David Lee. If you want to persuade Will, you persuade Alicia."
LOVE YOU
Kalinda shows Julius and Kalinda the photo of Fishmonger alongside the witness sketch, and tells them about how he redeemed his winnings seconds before the shooting, but then Alicia takes a call.
Alicia: "What am I doing? Working on a pro bono. What are you doing?"
Will: "I don't know. Whoring myself out. I sorta miss you."
Alicia: "I sorta miss you, too. Let's have a bunch of sex."
Will: "That sounds appropriate. Hey, a bunch of crows just took off into the sky and the moon turned red as blood in the middle of the day, so I'm guessing Celeste just showed up. I'll call you later? Love you."
Alicia: "..."
Will: "..."
Alicia: "..."
Will: "..."
Will: "Oh shit! I mean, whatever. I just... Words come out, you know, you say that at the end of phone calls, I said it, but it was like automatically, okay. Mechanically."
Alicia: "As insulting as that is, I'm with you. Please don't have said it."
Will: "I mean, I care about you, we are buddies and close friends."
Alicia: "There is certainly affection between us. I don't think anyone would disagree there."
Will: "So this isn't totally weird?"
Alicia: "Oh, it's totally weird. But it's weird in the exact same way that I am, like, genetically programmed to be okay with. Overlooking that stuff is like half my personality."
Will: "If only Eli could figure out how that time machine of his works, he could go back in time and erase me saying it this time, too."
CRAZYPANTS
Will: "Hey, that was a shitty move with Peter. Really mean."
Celeste: "Feeed the raaaaat. But wait, what's this? All this drama has just been a complex mind game. For you were not recruiting me, I was recruiting you! You are not acquiring a bankruptcy department, I'm starting my own firm, including those departments Diane thinks you're here for. And so the hunter becomes the hunted!"
Will: "I'm not going to let you put your weirdo spell on me this time, Serrano. I'm serious. None of your strange left-turns, none of your creepy sex stuff, no random curveballs or non sequiturs, just a good old-fashioned..."
Celeste: "-- I will make you Commissioner of Baseball!"
LEGAL AID
Diane: "Hey, sorry to just drop by your ... what seems to be a daycare facility for bored legal interns and crazy people ... but I just wanted to say hi. And some other things."
Coyne: "No problem. Just let me clear a space off this table we got from the garbage so you can sit down and drink tea out of this chipped cup. I'm sorry I can't offer you snacks, but at Legal Aid we derive our nutrition from helping people."
Diane: "How is that possible?"
Coyne: "It is not. But it's better than admitting that we are starving to death."
Diane: "How did things get to this point? You're like Big Edie over here."
Coyne: "I was just like you, man. A litigator at Portman & Michaels, on the partner track. But I just just couldn't take the meetings. I turned on, I tuned in, I dropped out. This is where it's really happening, man. On the streets."
Diane: "Oh, see I thought that was a pile of rags, but it was a person."
Coyne: "Yeah, that's our appeals department. She naps mostly. But it's fine, because nobody ever calls."
Diane: "Well, I'm sure that is hard, but I just wanted to say that we won't be doing any more pro bono work for you. We hate poor people, and do-gooders."
Coyne: "That's a stone bummer, man. Don't stress about it."
Diane: "I mean, seeing the abject nature of your fight against an uncaring and monolithic system has been eye-opening, but I'm really more interested in siphoning off as much money as possible from the bankrupting of America right now. Like a... Like a remora, or some other kind of parasite."
Coyne: "I get that, man. I really do. I grok that."
Diane: "Maybe when I get my shit together, I will extend our pro bono services to you again, but frankly that seems totally unlikely right now."
Coyne: "That's no problem, man. We probably won't be here when or if you do. We just lost our state funding, so, whatever."
Diane: "Wait, what? What the hell are you going to do? Your fight is a righteous one!"
Coyne: "You know, we can still knock on doors and yell at rich people. One thing I've learned in the not-for-profit world is that eventually, someone steps up."
Diane: "Do they?"
Coyne: "Yeah. I mean, apparently not you, but someone. At some point. Anyway, have a great afternoon! If you'll excuse me, I have to smush all the slivers of soap in the communal bathroom together, to make one soap. That's what my day looks like."
Diane: "Okay. It's good to finally meet you in person. I wish, uh... I don't know what I wish. I wish the world were different."
Coyne: "That sounds good! I'll be here waiting. And throwing the pages of my novel manuscript into this pot-bellied stove, one at a time, so the interns don't freeze to death in their fight for justice. It's my only copy, so..."
Diane: "Man, if I hadn't decided earlier today that I am going to be a cold mercenary GOP bitch from now on, that really would have gotten my heart bleeding."
CLE
Will Gardner is not interested in Luntz's stripper, no thank you. He is looking for Serrano's dispute resolution seminar, which is apparently... A poker game. Ah, Celeste. For such a complicated woman you sure do have one single metaphor going at all times. Care to make a wager? Or ante up some ... hold 'ems... This is not a language I share with Celeste and Will, so I may be wrong about some idioms. Care to hit on a thirteen or a soft eight? Wanna play six kings to a full straight? Or do a, like a, cribbage on a ... diamond flush? I don't know.
DIANE
Is still thinking about how much a piece of crap she feels like right now, and offers to help Alicia and Julius with their pro bono case. It's the act-out, so it's more emotional and incisive than it sounds, but it's cool. She's just like, "I am going to help these dudes out. That's what I can do tonight."
KALINDA
Well, turns out life has bonked the sullen white boy upside the head not just by making him a resentful fishmonger and one who lives with his screamin' meemie of a mother, but also he is an Anonymous Alcoholic. Maybe those are all the same thing, actually. I bet if you loved drinking that much and then you couldn't do it anymore, you wouldn't really see any reasons to be nice to random Kalindas. And that's also whence the secret underwear money, because he is the chapter treasurer, which is nice for him. I mean, that shows a certain something about his character, that they trust him to be treasurer. It's not the same thing as being the treasurer of like, nuns, but it's still nice for him. We judged him too harshly, based merely on his horrible attitude and his bureau full of sadness and the smell of fish. Maybe it's another form of cross-racial identification: Maybe all sad people look alike, just like the Beatles said.
Anyway, Kalinda has additionally figured out that the register has been monkeyed with and, coincidentally, the lotto ticket she's obsessing on was redeemed not seconds but an hour plus seconds before the murder. So now it becomes a doubt-spreading narrative -- Kalinda, Alicia, and Diane all working seamlessly together -- about a 30-ish addict who works a couple doors down, knows the door code to the backdoor, likes to gamble, had to move home, etc.
Julius: "I'm not on this show a whole lot so my understanding of the law may be rusty, but putting this on an innocent man? Isn't that how our client got into this mess?"
Diane: "Um. We're defending our client."
I mean, I guess I see your point, your stoner high school point, but anyway that's a separate case. One which doesn't exist. So we can cast doubt all over the place -- I mean, this happens in like every episode -- and not feel bad about it, because it's not a frame job because there is no case. Fishmonger hasn't been arraigned, hasn't been accused, hasn't undergone anything harsher than a visit from the Boot Fairy, and he doesn't even know about that. So I feel like that line was an awkward bone thrown to us -- because we are nitpickers who don't understand basic shit -- which we aren't, so it ended up just making things weird for everybody.
TRIAL
Judge Flamme is excited to see Diane in his courtroom, because he collects civil rights activists the way kids collect baseball cards, which is what comes of all this fancy education nowadays. Team L/G gets right to a motion to dismiss, since the prosecution apparently only has this one eyewitness, who was thirty feet away and saw Travis Dolan prior to his arrest, Travis Dolan who has no record, Travis Dolan whose young son Billy turned eight recently and who had to see his father Travis Dolan in handcuffs on his birthday, Travis Dolan who is a Cute Young Dad just trying to make it in this economy Your Honor.
AUSA Imani Stonehouse, randomly: "Your Honor, injustice comes in all shapes and sizes. It's not just in the man held, it's also in the man released. My grandfather once said, A judging brain requires a listening ear. I think that was true then, but it's doubly true now. You need to hear our full case before you can decide. To dismiss before you hear would be an injustice."
Judge: "That's clearly a bunch of meaningless -- not to say offensive -- words, but did I hear the important part right? Your grandfather is the Reverend Roy Stonehouse? I'm honored! Please tell him how greatly he's admired. My first thesis I wrote was on Selma! And convey my respect, as well. We all owe men like your grandfather a huge debt."
L/G: "Well, isn't that interesting, but we were just talking about how Travis Dolan is so innocent..."
Judge: "Not so fast! My first thesis was on Selma, so we're going to trial."
Imani, awesomely: "I don't like to use that much."
Cary, also fairly awesome: "Does it get you into restaurants?"
Look, bro. Imani gets to throw hers around on the rare occasion that somebody like Judge Flamme -- whose white privilege itself allows him to care so deeply about how much "we" owe civil rights activists -- comes up. But you, you carry yours like a crown, and don't even know it's there, because you have no reason to care whether it's there. The stars are aligned such that you -- Cary Agos -- are the baseline human: A white, beautiful, heterosexual man. The rest of us are imperfect copies of you, because you're the one telling the story. Does it get you into fuckin' restaurants? Fuck you!
Um, does your heritage get you into the best colleges so that you can procreate with other rich white people to form rich white dynasties and never pay estate tax on your wealth and continue to go to the best colleges so that you retain the entirety of the deciding power for laws, education and citizenship -- the basic rules of every social structure -- gaming the entire table for centuries until even a "level" playing field would look warped and crazy to a truly objective outsider?
I mean, privilege is like anything else: It's a system that pushes down on all of us, equally, with the weight of history. We all have different strengths and weaknesses that we bring to the table, competitively speaking. I am a man, so I get certain things you don't; you're straight so you get to have things I don't. But in an episode where the Jewish Outsider actually starts a conversation with the Bisexual Woman Of Color about what the hierarchy is, and how you can weasel your way past a Gentile No from baseline-human Will Gardner...
I don't know, I thought the whole Flamme thing ended up really nuanced, a nice little fillip on the whole concept at play. This scene, and the detective at the beginning. And always Diane, saying that women just have to work harder.
That the baseline isn't high enough, excellent enough, challenging enough, to satisfy the rest of us.
CLE
Will: "I have been gambling all night, but not to a problem extent."
Celeste: "Come back to this poker after whatever the mixer is. And hey, if you don't want to be the Commissioner of Baseball, how about a Sorcerer's Apprentice? Power to make brooms dance?"
Will: "Nope, I'm good."
Celeste: "How about the power of talking to animals, would you like that? Or I could make you the Vice President of Valenzuela."
Will: "Celeste, I'm perfectly happy where I am, you loonybird. And I'm not particularly interested in being your gambling buddy again, either."
Celeste: "Okay, but I'll hear from you on the baseball commissioner job?"
Will: "Celeste, no! I didn't like this life, not even when I was living it. I didn't like not knowing when I was being conned or conning."
Essentially, the idea of waiting ten or fifteen years for the current commissioner to die so that he could fight for it at that point sounds depressing. Um, it totally does sound depressing. Why would she even think that he would... Oh, right. Batshit crazy.
Will: "What a sad thought that is. Losing what I love now to chase something in the future."
Celeste: "What do you love? You said losing what I love now."
Will: "My job!"
Celeste: "I make words not make sense. Simply by saying them."
Celeste: "I don't believe you. I don't believe you love it. What you love is winning. And you can't win big enough at Lockhart, Gardner. This is your dream. What happened to pursuing your dream?"
Will: "What happened to work? Not everybody can pursue their dreams. Someone has to work."
Celeste: "Whoa. That is so sad!"
Will: "Not especially."
They're both right. It's just harder to see it as a fair fight when you consider that baseball commissioner was his dream. Is that like, code? For a job that is actually fun? Like how Railroad Commissioner is also in charge of whatever, carnivals and puppet shows. Is it like that? I know Will loves baseball a great deal, but I have been thinking about it all week and I can't imagine what a Commissioner of Baseball would do all day. Is that a forty-hour week? Maybe he solves crimes or something the other six days of the week? Maybe The Commish was short for Baseball Commissioner. Maybe that's why Batman was friends with that one guy, Gary Oldman. Free tickets.
TRIAL
Obviously it was the original witness that did the shooting. Obviously that is true. Kalinda figures it out some way where the witness said something he couldn't have known from where he was standing, and then they're like, "Let's go talk to Cary," and then suddenly the guy is getting released.
Cute Young Wife: "I've always waited for bad things to happen. Every day. Travis sees the good things. And I'm always waiting for the bad."
Alicia: "You sound like a miserable person to be around."
Cute Young Wife: "I don't want to be like that anymore. The worst thing happened, and we're still here."
Alicia: "Yeah, but are you really going to change or are you just saying that?"
Cute Young Wife: "Will you thank the other two lawyers? You know, the head of litigation and the named partner that somehow you hoodwinked into working with you on this open-and-shut pro bono case?"
Alicia: "Actually, it was the prosecutor that dropped the case. And then also our ex-friend Kalinda, who has a magic space telephone."
Travis: "Hey, buddy! I hope your bummer mom hasn't been bumming you out."
Billy: "So what you're saying is you didn't get me anything for my birthday? That's what I'm hearing from you?"
LOCKHART, GARDNER
Eli: "Listen, I would love an espresso machine."
Diane: "Whatever, Eli. You have broken my spirit."
Eli: "Why weren't you there to see your pro bono guy get released?"
Diane, and it's so sad: "No, I didn't do enough."
Will: "Hey, Alicia! I'm back and we really need to talk and talk and talk and process and process and process and turn everything into a huge fucking deal, okay?"
Alicia: "See, if you're in love with me, then I might be in love with you. And if I'm in love with you, then I'm pretty much a bastard. Somehow they have figured out a way to make you root against us being in love, and it's brilliant."
Will: "But like I really just can't seem to stop harassing you about..."
Alicia: "Will, please. I'm on the phone with my kids and I say I love you, and then I'm on the phone with my mother-in-law and I say I love you, too, and you know I don't love that old bitch. She is the worst. It just happens, man."
Will: "Okay, but don't you think that we should have a long boring talk about it anyway? Like you've already said several times you aren't interested in?"
Alicia: "No, like I said, I'm not interested."
Will: "I kind of only hear what I want to hear."
Alicia: "Then do you want to hear me dumping you? Because drop it. Jesus."
Lockhart & Gardner talk about how Celeste Serrano is forming her own firm for a second, and then Diane just opens her mouth and cuts loose.
"I don't want to be careful anymore. I don't want to count every penny and worry more about failing than doing what's right. Legal Aid is losing its office space. Everybody's pulling back because of the economy. I want to bring them in-house. There's room to Eli. He won't like it, but he'll have to live with it until we find more room. When our lawyers have free time, they can offer it to Legal Aid."
Will: "You should've broken up on the phone!"
Diane: "I want to do this, and I want your okay."
And I mean, her eyes are teared up and she's pretty much begging, not because she holds the purse strings by default and not because she wants him to lie. Just because if you're doing the right thing, you want to do it right: You want to feel good about the good, and that means no side-trips, no detours, no writing yourself a pass, no nothing. I want to do this, and I want your okay. Because at the end of the day she knew she hadn't done enough, and she knew this:
Wishing the world will change is, in the long run, a much bigger hassle than just changing it your own damn self.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion and Fringe Science.